Areas · county desk
Reel pickup in Prince William County: overlay district campuses and I-95
MANASSAS, Va. — The desk collects empty reels and delivers wooden spools across Prince William County. Reels here come from data-centre campuses in the county's overlay district, from the I-95 corridor around Woodbridge, and from the transmission lines crossing the county toward Loudoun.
From the reel desk · Checked 9 November 2026
Schematic line map, not to survey: Prince William County marked, with I-66, I-95, Route 28, Route 1 drawn heavier. The Potomac, the Anacostia, the District line and the Beltway are drawn for bearings.
Fact box: Prince William County
- Data centres (2022 count)
- 33 existing, 13 under construction, 5.49 million sq ft
- Overlay district
- Data Center Overlay District, created 2016
- Digital Gateway
- Rezonings voided; project ended in 2026
- Main corridors
- I-66, I-95, Route 28, Route 1
- Town pages
- 3
The overlay district
Prince William set up a Data Center Overlay District in 2016 to steer data centres to areas with power and fibre. Data Center Frontier’s 2022 report counted 33 existing data centres in the county, about 5.49 million square feet on 523 acres, with 13 more under construction. Twenty-nine of the 33 were inside the overlay. The campuses it named belonged to Amazon Web Services, CloudHQ, Iron Mountain and QTS, and Corscale was planning a campus called Gainesville Crossing. Those counts are now several years old and the county has grown since; we use them because they are the most recent figures we could check.
The Digital Gateway
The county’s largest proposed project, the Digital Gateway, planned on about 2,100 acres near Manassas National Battlefield Park, is no longer going ahead. Virginia Business reported in July 2026 that a judge voided its rezonings in August 2025, the Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling on 31 March 2026, and QTS withdrew. We mention it only so nobody plans a yard around it.
Transmission
Loudoun County’s transmission page describes Dominion’s Morrisville to Wishing Star 500 kV line, filed in February 2026, which runs from Fauquier County through Prince William to the Wishing Star substation near Arcola in Loudoun. Transmission work brings the largest reels, mostly steel and returnable.
Building along I-95
Woodbridge, Dumfries and the Route 1 corridor in the east of the county have steady residential and commercial construction, plus the warehouses that follow I-95. Those jobs produce the usual mix: building wire on small reels, feeders on mid-size ones, plywood reels from building wire makers.
How pickups work here
The county splits naturally into west (Manassas, Gainesville, Haymarket, Bristow) and east (Woodbridge, Dumfries, Lorton across the line). Pickups usually stay on one side in a day. Data-centre sites have their own access rules, and the desk will ask about gate badging and delivery windows.
Buyers
Western Prince William still has farms and horse properties near the Fauquier line that want large reels. Event venues around Haymarket and Gainesville use reels as tables. In the east, buyers are mostly homeowners and small contractors.
Roads
I-66 crosses the west of the county from Gainesville through Manassas toward Fairfax. I-95 and Route 1 run through the east. Route 28 connects Manassas north to the Dulles corridor, and the Prince William Parkway links the two halves.
Town pages
Three places have their own pages: Manassas, Gainesville and Woodbridge.
Sending a request from Prince William County
- Count and measure. Count the reels and measure the largest flange edge to edge across the face. A photo with the tape in it is better than a guess.
- Check the build. Nailed lumber, plywood sheet, steel or plastic. Look for a stencil or tag naming the maker and the reel number.
- Set aside steel and tagged returnables with their serial numbers. Those go back to the maker, not to the desk.
- Say where they stand: yard, dock, garage level, alley or curb, plus clearance, gate hours, badging or escort a driver needs.
- Say what loads them: forklift, pallet jack, loader, ramp, or only people. Reels over 42 inches weigh more than 100 lb empty.
- Say how often: one time, weekly, monthly or at each job close-out.
- Buying instead? Give the flange and height you want, how many, and how the reel gets from the truck to where it will sit.
- No form handy? Email info@dcwoodenspools.com with the same details and a few photos.
Reels you are likely to have
| Reel | Build | Flange | Traverse | Drum | Lb | Usually carries |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C-5 | Nailed wood | 23 | 17 | 12 | 34 | Copper building wire, grounding |
| A-10 | Nailed wood | 30 | 22 | 16 | 66 | Service drop, bare aluminium |
| N-24 | Nailed wood | 36 | 28 | 14 | 83 | Insulated and multiplex cable |
| A-29 | Nailed wood | 42 | 28 | 21 | 154 | Overhead conductor, feeders |
| A-38 | Nailed wood | 48 | 28 | 24 | 212 | Aluminium and ACSR, large feeders |
| A-62 | Nailed wood | 60 | 28 | 28 | 397 | Utility conductor |
| A-76 | Nailed wood | 66 | 28 | 30 | 473 | Heavy conductor |
| S-120 | Steel, returnable | 84 | 36 | 42 | 895 | Transmission and medium voltage |
Other makers' reels differ by an inch or two. All flange sizes · How to measure
Questions the desk gets
Is the Digital Gateway still a source of reels?
No. Its rezonings were voided and upheld on appeal, and QTS withdrew. The project has ended.
How current are the county's data-centre counts?
The figures here are from 2022, the latest we could check. The county has added buildings since.
Sources
Each opened and read on 9 November 2026.
- Data Center Frontier, Prince William County weighs proposals that could accelerate data center growth (8 August 2022): 33 existing data centres, 5.49 million sq ft, 13 under construction, 29 in the Data Center Overlay District created in 2016
- Virginia Business, Prince William Digital Gateway data center project officially dies (6 July 2026): rezonings voided in August 2025, affirmed 31 March 2026; QTS withdrew its appeal
- Loudoun County, Transmission Lines in Loudoun County: status of Aspen to Golden, Golden to Mars, BECO to Firehouse, Evergreen Mills, Global Plaza Extension, Mars to Wishing Star and the Potomac Edison Goose Creek rebuild